ONLY A MONKEY IS SMILING

Here’s one for the history books! In 2011, photographer David Slater went to Indonesia to shoot photos of black macaques. (Macaques are birds.) Some curious monkeys gathered so Salter allowed the monkeys to take selfies, like this one. The photographs were so ‘different’ that Slater published a book of the photos. Enter PETA. The law gives the copyright of photos to the photographer, not the subject of the photo. So, the monkeys owned the copyright. Did they? Good question! Three years later, in an out-of-court settlement, Slater agreed to give 25% of the royalties of the book to organizations in Indonesia which protect black macaques. The monkeys were left out of the money in the cold, rather, the jungle. [See my books at https://authormasterminds.com/steve-levi.]